Off to Thailand for the Winter

Enjoying the Journey

Today (and tomorrow) we start our 28 hour journey from San Francisco to Chiang Rai. Three flights may sound like a pain, but collecting flights and airport lounges make this a fun adventure.

Our first flight leaves just before midnight on Saturday and arrives 14 hours later on Monday morning in Taipei. We love Eva Air because the flight attendants are super friendly, the food is great, and the economy seats feel positively luxurious. The extra 3 inches of leg room and 10 degrees of tilt on the seat makes a world of difference in the ability to sleep.

In Taipei, we visit the Oriental Lounge and luxuriate in their massage chairs and their cooked-to-order Taiwanese classics. I especially love the braised pork over rice and the beef noodle soup and end up feeling super rushed. It’s a great feeling to wish your transit time could be LONGER.

Another 4 hours pass and we’re in Bangkok. Here we discover that Japanese food, snacks, and convenience stores have really taken off in Thailand. There’s a Lawsons with bento boxes and matcha kitkats on sale, which totally makes sense as they’re awesome. We make our way to the Coral Lounge, a small but bright and airy lounge in the domestic terminal that is festooned with colorful flowers and even has a live tree with birds up in the canopy. It overlooks a garden at the airport and feels like a British tea garden. That’s great as we have 4+ hours to kill. The service is next-level in Thailand, and we get brought mojitos by the resident English-speaker, a lovely woman from the Philippines (who, like us, struggles to understand the complex Thai language). There is even a masseuse who comes over to give us 15 minute shoulder massages at our table. Thai massage achieved, and we haven’t even left the airport yet!

A short flight later and we land in Chiang Rai, a smallish city in Northern Thailand near the border with Myanmar and Laos. We splurge on a downtown hotel with adjoining rooms and a lovely pool so we can have a lot of space for our 2 weeks here. Upon landing, we find out that there are lights in the park just a block from the hotel, so despite our weariness, we venture out to find that Christmas has come early!

The park is decked out with lights. There’s a giant tree in the center across from a snowy (white sand) play area for the kids. Snow (soap bubbles) flurry all around us. There are giant santas (though their santa mascot is purple and has five eyes), snowmen, lit up angels… and a cute mushroom walk. There’s even live performers on a giant stage. The crowd on a Monday night is subdued which makes it feel much more pleasant as the park has all the excitement of the lights without the overwhelming background noise you get in a large city.

There’s also a night market next door. Our eyes go wide at the large array of street food representing Thai, Japanese, and Korean snacks. We get some amazing fried pork on rice for $1.50 and eat it next to the karaoke-grade singer entertaining the masses.

Then we return to the hotel, and I start my first night of work, as it’s Monday morning back home. For everyone else, it’s just been a normal weekend, but for me, I’ve crossed the ocean and visited a couple countries on the way to this video call. Best commute ever.